Anyone reading last week’s newspaper editorials in newspapers such as the Mail or the Telegraph will know that our press is anxious. This week, the independent Press Recognition Panel – established by Parliament as part of the post-Leveson framework – is meeting to decide whether to confer recognition status on Impress, a self-regulator established in order to meet the Charter criteria for genuinely effective and independent self-regulation. Read the rest of this entry »

The irrefutable evidence that IPSO is and was always intended to be the same kind of sham regulators as its three un-illustrious predecessors emerges clearly from how it administers its primary remedy. If IPSO had any intention of actually uncovering any wrongdoing on the part of the press it would not have instigated a 28 day period in which the press can cover up its wrongdoing. If it had any intention of deterring the press from breaching even its self-written code of practice then it would permit it to publish corrections and apologies which are a fraction the size of the offending article. Read the rest of this entry »

Sir Alan Moses has been propagandising again about the merits of IPSO, and in particular its alleged superiority over its predecessor, the Press Complaints Commission (“PCC”). He told the Guardian that IPSO is “much better than before” – by which he presumably means the PCC. I will demonstrate that he is plainly wrong about this. Read the rest of this entry »

Howls of outrage from the press led by Lord Black have apparently persuaded the government to withdraw its statutory stick in the form the Crime and Courts Act 2013 which was passed by our elected representatives to prevail on the press belatedly to join the democratic community and be independently regulated. Read the rest of this entry »

The PCC was belatedly consigned to the dustbin of history when it was finally so obvious that it was a failed regulator (as was always its purpose) that even the press finally had to admit it. From that point the press will have begun the process of replacing it with an entity which was as institutionally bound to fail as its predecessor – ideally with a cloak of respectability derived from hiring high profile individuals who would then be prepared for a healthy salary to participate in the same confidence trick that comprised the PCC. Read the rest of this entry »

In the final two parts of this post I examine why the efficacy of press regulation matters and how much. The short answer as to “why” is that we rely on the media to be our eyes and ears on what is happening in the world around us for all the myriad of decisions that we need that information for.

Reforms to the Sun’s system of cash payments pledged to the Press Complaints Commission by Rebekah Brooks “were never implemented,” the deputy editor of the newspaper has said. Read the rest of this entry »